Donald Trump’s Pants on Fire Claim about ‘Treason’

Jed Shugerman was quoted in a Politifact article about President Trump accusing the Democrats of treason.

With the possible exception of an American “levying war” against U.S. troops in a place like Afghanistan, “the biggest-picture takeaway is that there is no treason occurring on any side now,” said Jed Shugerman, a legal historian at Fordham Law School.

Indeed, Shugerman has previously cautioned those on the left who would label members of Trump’s circle as treasonous for allegedly cooperating with Russia during the 2016 election. The most fundamental reason why the word “treason” would be inaccurate in such cases, Shugerman and others argue, is that the United States is not at war with Russia.

“We are not at war with Russia under any fair understanding of the word,” he said. Shugerman added that even a notion like “cyberwar” with Russia is a metaphor for war rather than an actual deadly conflict, unless that cyberwar were to escalate to, say, hacking into nuclear power plants with the intent of exploding them.

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Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to more than 15,100 students in its four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools.